eli5 what gametogenesis is
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As with most scientific terms, it’s helpful to break it up into its Latin or Greek (in this case, Greek) origins. In this case, it’s *gamete* (a type of cell, but ultimately from the Greek word for “husband” or “wife”) + *genesis* (“creation” or “start”, literally “birth”). So it’s the “creation” (*genesis*) of “gametes” (*gameto-*). If you know what gametes are, that already gives you some tools to guess the meaning.
But that aside: *gametes* are the cells that are involved in sexual reproduction. In humans, the gametes are sperm cells (produced by men*) and egg cells (by women). During sexual reproduction (in the case of humans, during sex that produces a child), sperm cells are brought into contact with egg cells; the sperm cell merges with the egg cell and releases the father’s half of the child’s genetics into the egg cell. That half combines with the mother’s half of the child’s genetics, already present in the egg, to form the genes of the child.
*Gametogenesis*, then, is how you make those cells. Specifically, it’s the process by which the cells of the mother and father split in ways that produce egg and sperm cells. The most important piece of this process is [*meiosis*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiosis) (pronounced “my-oh-sis”), a form of cell division that is different from the *mitosis* that is normally how cells reproduce. In mitosis, a cell produces two identical daughter cells; in meiosis, a cell produces *four* non-identical daughters that each carry half of the original’s DNA.
(* Setting aside trans or intersex people for a moment, since we’re talking about normal reproduction here.)
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